Riley McPoole
by HI MY NAME IS uncool
Summary: In which there is a bet and ensuing insanity. More Ben/Riley, Riley/Ben, Briley all over the place. And hinted Abigail/Sadusky. Spread the love.


I don't own anything at all. I'm sorry to disappoint - no Reese and no Alice this time around. I wrote this story for piratehatter over on livejournal. She drew me an adorable picture with the boys and their baby girl, in exchange for a fic. So, here it is.

**Riley McPoole**

Benjamin Gates pursed his lips studiously, drumming his fingers on his mahogany desk. In his other hand, he held a red pen, which he was using to edit the speech he was supposed to be making to a lecture hall full of impressionable history majors. Impressionable like he was impressionable once. He tapped the capped end of the pen on the papers once before underlining a word that he was repeating too many times. It was a bitch to edit his own work, but Abigail was off being Abigail, which meant crashing at her apartment after arriving home from a week stint in Taiwan and Riley was off being Riley, which meant dancing around in the hall.

"Ben?" He stretched out the single-syllable name for almost three minutes as he slid past the study in his socks. He sounded remarkably like an ambulance siren going past – starting off soft and rising in pitch and volume and then quieting down again as he traveled down the hall. "BenBenBenBenBen?"

"Yes, Riley?" He was distracted and it was apparent in his voice.

"What would you do if I told I was wearing a thong?"

"I wouldn't believe you," Ben muttered and chewed on the end of the pen.

"You're too smart for me," Riley panted as he glided past. There was a pause and the clang of metal as he unfastened his belt and unzipped his jeans. "I'm actually wearing my Kiss Me, I'm Irish boxers. They're green."

"Wouldn't have guessed." There was another blessed pause of silence as Riley struggled to redress himself. Ben couldn't help himself and he called out, "need some help, kiddo?"

"Nah, I'm good." There he went, rushing by again. "Ben, d'you think I'm Irish? Would you kiss me better if I was Irish. Not to say that you're a bad kisser," he amended quickly.

"Of course not," Ben agreed and underlined a sentence in need of rewriting. Something about the syntax was just _off_. "And you're not so bad yourself."

"Why thank you. Even if I wasn't Irish, would you still kiss me? Because, Ben, I don't think I'm Irish. I really, really don't." He leaned against the door frame, waiting for a response. "Ben?"

"Yeah, sure, Riley."

"Awesome," he breathed to himself and skated away on his socked feet. For the briefest of brief seconds, Ben thought he had wandered off to the kitchen, or their bedroom, or the roof. It wouldn't have been the first time.

"Hey, hey, hey, hey Ben? Would you still love me if I bleached my hair?" Riley called as he flailed past. There was a muffled thud as he banged into the wall. "Ben?" He repeated as he skidded down the hall again, "would you? I think I'd make a sexy blond. Definitely sexier than Ian," he commented to himself.

"To be honest," Ben mumbled as he started reading his speech to himself for the fourth time, "I can't imagine loving you any less than I do right now."

"Oh, I doubt that," Riley argued as he clung on the door handle to steady himself. His feet almost slipped out from under him. "I'm sure you'd love me a lot less if I cheated on you, or something."

"At least you'd have someone else to bug." The resulting silence made Ben look up from his task. A quiet Riley was a scary Riley because the only time it was safe for him to be quiet was when he slept. Other than that, it was a dangerous thing for him to suddenly stop talking. Riley was leaning against the door with one elbow with a pale expression on his face. "Riley?" Ben lowered his paper and put down his pen.

"D'you mean that? I mean, really-really mean that?" Ben sighed to himself. Sometimes, for whatever reason, Riley went through sudden bouts of self-doubt. They usually lasted about a day or two, or however long it took Ben to sex him out his funk. Now, however, with his deadline fast approaching, Ben had little to no time to indulge him.

"Riley..." He exhaled in half-exasperation, half-sympathy.

"I'm just joshing you," Riley snickered to himself and twirled around. "Joshing you," he repeated in perplexed concentration, "where the hell did I pick that up?"

"Probably Reese, she says a lot of things like that," Ben suggested and went back to reading. Riley pondered this and twirled some more before he spun himself into the wall. "Please don't break anything," Ben pleaded and crossed out a sentence; he rewrote it in the margin.

"If I do break something, it'll be your fault," Riley sang and pushed off the wall before resuming his skittering up and down the hall.

"And why is that?" Ben had to raise his voice to be heard over Riley's amused giggles.

"Because," he reached out with one hand to grab the handle as he flew past. "I'm only getting into trouble because you're not paying attention to me so if things get broken, it's on you." And off he went to get a running start for his next trip down the hall.

"You're ridiculous," Ben muttered to himself, flipping back and forth between the two pages. Hopefully, the speech would feel longer when he read it aloud. To a lecture hall full of impressionable history majors. Why was that bothering him so much?

"Would you have me any other way?" Riley quipped as he wooshed by the door. "I think you would fall out of love with me if I wasn't ridiculous. It's part of my charm." Before Ben could counter his oh-so-convincing argument, Riley flounced into the office. He took an investigative look around, as if he had never seen the room before. "Wow," he drawled, sauntering up to the desk. "This is a sturdy piece of furniture. Bet it could take a lot of strain." He winked and rapped his knuckles against the wood.

"Riley," Ben cautioned, "I'm working." Riley pouted and pushed his glasses up his nose with one finger. With a single eyebrow arched, he reached over and plucked the red pen out of Ben's hand. "_Riley_." Dissuaded by the warning in Ben's voice, Riley trailed around the desk, smiling dangerously. "I need to finish this; I'm being serious here – " Apparently, Ben wasn't serious enough to stop Riley from climbing onto his lap and sealing his mouth with a very thorough kiss.

Ben's hands wandered from the arms of his chair to Riley's hips. Shamelessly Riley pressed himself against Ben, straddling the other man's thighs with his knees and grabbing fistfuls of his shirt. With a groan, Ben wrapped an arm around Riley's waist and cradled the back of his head with his other hand. They separated, taking gasping breaths of shared air, and Riley's satisfied smile turned into a little 'o' of stuttered pleasure as Ben attached his mouth to his neck, sucking, biting and licking away any pain.

"I, just... wanted some... attention," he admitted between whimpers, clutching at Ben's shoulders. Ben smirked and kissed him once on the mouth before pulling back.

"Well, Mr. Poole, you certainly have mine." Smirking, Riley adjusted the chair so his back was against the desk. Ben was content to watch as he lifted himself up on the piece of furniture, letting his legs fall open.

"Just a quickie," he promised breathlessly and yanked Ben forward by his collar, joining their mouths again. Ben obliged, palming him roughly, and Riley squirmed as Ben worked him through his jeans. His head fell back and he scrabbled with his hands, trying to find something to ground him. What he did find was Ben's two-day old cup of coffee. What the two day old cup of coffee found was Ben's carefully constructed, carefully annotated speech. For the lecture hall full of impressionable history majors.

Suddenly calm and very much not turned on, Ben leaned his head against Riley's collar bone. Riley had fallen still, save for the panicked rise and fall of his chest. "I told you," he leveled, "that I had to do work."

"I'm sorry," Riley babbled in a rush. "I'm really, really sorry Ben." He glanced over his shoulder at the sopping, stained mess. The red ink from Ben's scribbled edits was bleeding, running, with the black font. He was reaching out with one hand, about to pick up the stapled papers, when Ben stopped him with a single word.

"Don't." Riley inhaled and exhaled loudly as Ben pushed away from the desk. "All I needed was a few hours, Riley. Just a few hours to figure out my speech. But, I can't even get that much. Because you need constant supervision." He paced, ranting, as Riley sat on the desk with his feet dangling inches above the floor. It made him feel short, small, like a child. "Just a few hours, Riley, that's all I wanted."

"Actually," Riley spoke without thinking as he hopped off the desk (hopefully, he didn't look as ruffled and ravished as he felt), "you've been cooped up in here for the past three days."

"Working on a very important paper," Ben enunciated slowly as he tried to keep his patience. "You know what an honor it is for me to be able to speak about something I love to a lecture hall –"

"– Full of impressionable history majors, I know." Riley sighed and leaned against the hall with his arms crossed over his chest. "And I am sorry about your paper, Ben. But, it was an honest mistake. It's not like I woke up this morning thinking, _oh, it'd be great to make out with Ben and almost have sex on his desk but I'll craftily ruin the moment by spilling coffee all over the place_. Give me a little credit here." He had a mini-attack of despair when he saw the stony expression on Ben's face. Most of their almost-fights could be averted with a well-placed sarcastic comment. Clearly, this was no such circumstance.

"Riley, it's not even about the paper. It's that you can't listen to me. I just want you to respect that I need some time alone, to work things out." He was interrupted by Riley's stricken, open-mouthed stare. "What?"

"Is this... are you..." Riley closed his eyes and took a deep breath before continuing. "Are you breaking up with me?"

Ben raised an eyebrow, "no... Where'd you get that?"

"Maybe the whole needing time alone thing? And I'm sorry if I just want to be with you, Ben. I'm kind of in love with you, if you haven't noticed." Riley flung his arms out to enhance the dramatic nature of his argument. "I like being around, only not right now because we're fighting, but other times. Like, a few minutes ago. That was pretty nice, that kissing thing we were doing. Do you want to try that again?"

"That kissing thing," Ben muttered to himself. "Is that all you think about?"

"Most of the time," Riley all but shouted, "yes. I'm a very physical, flirtatious person. But, it's possible you weren't aware of that, seeing as how you apparently didn't notice I was in love with you." Ben put two fingers to his forehead, groaning in frustration.

"I have two days to prepare for this. Just two days. Can you give me that much?"

"Two days," Riley commented to himself.

"Yes," Ben answered, already formulating a plan. "I _bet_ you that you can't go two days without flirting, kissing, touching... anything sexual."

"Two days?" Riley asked, sounding suddenly unsure. He was envisioning the next 48 (if not more) hours full of cold shoulders and wordless glares. The night would be spent on opposite sides of the bed, if one of them didn't crash on the couch first. "Ben, if you need space, then, um I can... can give it to you, but this... this is –"

"Oh no," Ben interrupted. "Are you saying you can't handle two celibate days? I'm appalled at your lack of dedication, Mr. Poole." Puffing out his chest angrily, Riley grabbed Ben's hand in a rough handshake.

"You're on, Gates."

It was the worst mistake of their lives.

Riley spent the next hour sitting on his bed in his room, staring at his closed laptop. Ideally, there would be something requiring his attention. He frequented various computer geek based blogs, chatting about the latest gadgets and how to best undermine corporate America to achieve their ultimate goal of a hacker-Utopian society. The usual things. He pulled his legs to his chest and rested his chin on his knobby knees. Idly, he traced over the hickeys on his neck and sighed. Behind his crooked glasses, his blue eyes were quiet and sad.

In the next room over, Ben was reading over a freshly printed, coffee-free copy of his speech. He whispered the words to himself, rubbing at his chin and pretending that he was paying attention. After they had shaken on the bet, Riley had hovered half-in, half-out of the office before disappearing. The squeaking bedsprings let Ben know that he was in his room. Despite the fact that they spent every night together, both he and Riley had their own personal rooms. Rarely did the night end without one of them sneaking into the other's bed, however. Hopefully, he nodded to himself, tonight would not be the night to break that cycle.

But, he realized belatedly, with the bet in play, it was most probable that he and Riley would be spending the night in different rooms. Ben put down his pen and cursed himself. It was a stupid idea – one he hadn't thought through all the way. The mopey silence permeating the room did little to ease his distraction and he sighed, glancing in the direction of Riley's room. What was the likelihood that he and his hacker friend (Matt Farrell, was it?) were plotting the overthrow of the government? Very likely, Ben admitted as he settled back in his chair to do some real work, and it would be on him if they broke America.

Moping so much really cramped up a guy, Riley noticed as he finally unfolded himself. It was well into the afternoon, and so far, he was doing okay with this bet thing. He had entertained himself by mentally taking apart every electronic he owned and putting it back together. But that was kind of what he did. It kept him from thinking sexy thoughts – mind over matter! – so he challenged himself further by coming up with as many ways to turn all his little hand held toys into weapons of mass destruction.

And then he got hungry.

Rubbing at his rumbling tummy, Riley peeked into the hallway. It would not do to run into Ben, when he was doing so well (could he really pull off turning his web cam into a death ray?) with the little two-day bet. Two days, he scoffed to himself, how easy. A piece of cake. Ooh, cake, Riley brightened – maybe they had some cake down in the kitchen. Head full of cake-related happy thoughts, he practically bounded to the stairs. He stopped short at the doorway to Ben's office. Ben was sitting at his desk, staring at that damn speech with his eyes narrowed. Unconsciously, Riley followed the motion of his mouth as he read in a muted whisper. His hands gestured softly and Riley smiled gently.

It wasn't until Ben stopped reading that Riley came to his senses. Panicked, he nearly tripped over himself as he flailed down the hall. That was close, he thought as he thumped down the stairs. And he had been making such progress (Digital camera? Stun gun? Why not?) in his abstinence. Oh well, he sighed with slumped shoulders. At least there was cake in his future.

As it stood, there was no cake in the kitchen and therefore, no cake in his future. Abigail must've eaten it. Never mind the fact that she had just barely returned from Taiwan. The woman had crazy cake eating powers. Had it really only been four and a half hours since he was straddling Ben's lap? The real question was, after all, could he turn the microwave into an x-ray machine.

Shit.

It took only another hour for Riley to run out of ways to redesign the entire house into a weapon of massively massive mass destruction and he still hadn't gotten any cake. Nor had he talked to Ben. But what was really bothering him was, would the web cam make a good... Oh, wait, already been there. He slammed his clenched fist against his knee and winced at the resulting pain. He flopped back on the couch, staring at the ceiling. He really needed a new hobby. One that didn't involve having sex with his former best friend turned housemate whatever they were. Whatever, indeed.

Said former best friend turned housemate whatever they were was just above his head, working away on his speech. He had found a perfect place to start talking about the importance of trusting one's instincts, even if they led one on a wild, cross-national fight for one's life. And he hadn't even started on stealing the Declaration yet.

Ben smiled at his productivity as he typed on his computer. This thing was practically writing itself, which was a relief. Though, someone else would probably need to look over it and, since he and Riley were on opposite sides of a bet, he'd have to call Abi. Maybe, just maybe, she wouldn't be thrown into a murderous rage if he interrupted her jet lag induced coma. Well, there was always tomorrow morning, Ben decided as he glanced at the clock with a wince. Was it really already half past ten?

It was then that he became aware of his growling stomach. He hadn't eaten anything since breakfast that morning and even that had been a rushed, poor excuse of a meal. Stretching in his chair, Ben was satisfied to hear his back pop. Perhaps it was time for some food. Rubbing at the back of his sore neck, he made his way downstairs, to poke around in the kitchen. He and Riley had finished off the last of the cake the night before, but there was bound to be something equally delicious available for consumption.

What he found were the ingredients for the ultimate turkey sandwich. He also found Riley Poole, sprawled out, passed out, all out on the couch with his ripped, faded Converse lying on the floor. Ben ate his dinner quietly as his eyes trailed over the lanky limbs of his former best friend turned housemate whatever they were. One arm was curled over his flat tummy, the other flung to rest above his head. One leg was bent, hooking the knee over the back of the couch. His other leg was stretched straight.

Ever so gently, Ben traced his fingertips up Riley's cheek to brush his bangs back. Careful not to disturb him, Ben pressed a sugar-soft kiss to his forehead. "Love you kid," he whispered as he pulled back. He lingered for a second longer, watching as Riley mumbled and rearranged himself on the couch, before he padded back up to his room. It wasn't ideal, he acquiesced, sleeping in a cold bed, but it was the price to pay for being stubborn. Besides, who knew what tomorrow would bring?

As it was, tomorrow brought many things. The least of which was Abigail, looking a little ragged around the edges but elegant nonetheless. In exchange for lunch ordered in (her apartment was out of food at the moment), she agreed to proofread his speech. Privately, she wondered why Riley couldn't do it. He had written his own book after all, and it wasn't half-bad. Perhaps he too was involved in a mini-project of his own and couldn't be bothered to edit Ben's paper. Though, that didn't sound like any Riley Poole she knew.

A little after noon, she let herself into the house – they all had keys to each other's homes; it was just easier that way. "Hello?" She called out hesitantly, shutting the door behind her.

"Hey Abi!" Came the shouted reply. "I'm upstairs! Hold on, I'll be right down."

"Where's Riley?" She asked, taking off her jacket and hanging it on the coat rack.

"Can't really say," Ben answered as he descended the stairs. "He peeled out of here about an hour ago, babbling about kings and queens." Abigail scoffed to herself. "How was Taiwan?"

"Oh, not bad," she sighed. "After waiting five hours on the runway to take off." Ben cringed in sympathy but she waved it away. As a seasoned flight traveler, Abi was more than used to the inconveniences of airports. "I wish you and Riley could've come," she admitted as she followed him back up to his office.

"Yeah?" He tried to sound politely interested without telling her too much. Somehow, he got the feeling that Abigail wouldn't exactly approve of the little wager he and Riley had going.

"Yes, it was simply fascinating. But, we can chat about that later," she determined. "How far have you gotten on your speech?"

"Well," he rubbed his elbow and stepped aside so she could enter the office before him, "I think I'm done with it. I just wanted a second opinion overall." He sat back, fidgeting a little, as she read over his speech with a contemplative frown on her face. It was always difficult for him to allow other people to critique his work, but it was something that needed to be done.

"Okay," Abigail began slowly and Ben groaned.

"That bad, huh?" She laughed and shook her head.

"No, it's actually quite good. There are just some parts that I think need a little revision." She picked up his discarded red pen and raised an eyebrow. "May I?"

He waved his hand grandly, "by all means. Let me have it." She smiled and started talking him through some of her suggestions, and thus began the great brainstorming debate.

While those two were picking apart Ben's presentation, Riley was doing his best not to run over his mailbox as he swerved into the driveway. Despite falling asleep relatively early, he spent most of the night half-conscious, plagued by fever dreams. Waking up to a broken coffee pot contributed to his edginess. Deep down, he had known that thing would have made a terrible teleportation device.

Feeling particularly crafty, Riley clutched his purchases to his chest as he peeked through the barely cracked front door. Muted voices drifted down from Ben's office – Abi was over, helping Ben edit his speech. They would be busy for hours. Perfect. He had plenty of time to execute his plan – to build the ultimate card house from eight different decks. Cackling madly, he dashed up the stairs. He flew by Ben's office, a blur of blue jean and white t-shirt, and launched himself into his bedroom. Hopefully, Ben and Abi would be none the wiser.

Seized by a mad desperation, he began tearing the plastic packaging off the red and blue boxes. With a spastic gleam in his eye, he shuffled all the decks together to create a monster deck. And it was monstrous. He sat back, admiring the five inch tall stack of power. Yes sir, Riley Poole was going places in the world. He began crawling across the floor on all-fours as he went about building the foundation of his uber-city.

This was how Abi and Ben found him two hours later. They stood in the doorway, transfixed as he navigated through the twisting card-paths. Ben, mildly disturbed by Riley's babbling, took a step forward. The movement upset the careful balance of Riley's construction site. It was like watching a car crash or a gun going off in slow motion. The lower levels of the structures started wobbling and it collapsed in on itself. Riley's shoulders slumped and Ben froze. Abi's hand flew to her mouth in shock.

"My life has no purpose," Riley muttered to himself, trailing his fingers across the remains of Rileytropolis. "...No purpose..."

"Riley," Ben murmured, reaching out to comfort him. Like flipping a switch, Riley jumped to his feet and flung his arms out to ward off his approach.

"Stay back," he ordered with a cracking voice. "I won't be tempted – don't look at me!" Abi and Ben watched, stunned, as he covered his head with his arms and ran out of his room. Abi slowly turned her head, fixing Ben with a level stare and a raised eyebrow.

"What, exactly, is going on, Benjamin?" Feeling only slightly threatened, he crossed his arms over his chest protectively.

"Well, you see..."

Riley stumbled up to the McDonald's counter. His eye was twitching; it had been doing that since he had fled from the house. It would have to stop eventually, he reasoned as he pressed his thumb against his left cheekbone. Eventually.

"Hi," the kid behind the register smiled, "what can I get for you?"

Riley winced in response to the kid's perkiness, "gimme a number."

"Um, sir?" The kid blinked. Clearly, this had not been covered in the McDonald's employee handbook.

"A number, please."

"Er, eighteen, I guess," the kid shrugged.

"Eighteen. Good," Riley nodded to himself and fumbled his wallet out of his back pocket. "Nice, strong number."

"Yeah, I'm turning eighteen in a few days." The kid brightened at potential conversation, "I'm pretty excited about it. My folks are going –"

"I'll have eighteen McFlurries."

"...What?"

"Eight. Teen. Mc. Flurries." He took his hand away from his face to brace himself on the counter. His eye started twitching again. "Now."

"Are you serious?"

"Are you denying me my right to consume McFlurries?"

"Is, uh, this some kind of joke or something?"

"Do I need to find the manager? Because, I will. Don't think I won't. But we can avoid all this if you just get me my damn McFlurries. Eighteen of them. Please," he added as an after-thought.

"Sir?"

"Eighteen McFlurries!" He slammed his open palm against the counter, gaining the attention of other employees behind the counter as well as a good percentage of the McDonald's patrons.

"Um, did you want M&M or Oreo, or nine of each...?" The kid sounded genuinely scared. A part of Riley felt a twinge of pity, but it was smothered by the rush of desperation.

"M&M. Don't be mixing my cookies with my ice cream. You wouldn't think of doing something like that, would you? You better not be, because I know people. People with guns. Who steal things. Like the Declaration of Independence."

"...That'll be 34.92, sir."

"Damn straight it will be."

It took a good deal of Riley's skills (of which he has many) to balance all eighteen McFlurries and make it from the car to the house. He was determined to carry all of them in one trip and he succeeded. Abi and Ben were sitting at the kitchen table, eating what looked like take out from the local Chinese place. They looked up, petrified, when he kicked open the door. He enjoyed the panic for a brief second before inhaling dramatically.

"This is what you do to me!" He cried, gesturing with the ice cream in his arms. "This is what you do to me!" Without sparing a backward glance, Riley bounded up the stairs to the sanctuary of his room. The cards had been cleaned up but he tried not to think about that. To comfort himself, he polished off half of his first (of many) McFlurry. It was delicious.

Below him, Ben sighed and covered his eyes with his hand. Abi laughed and patted him on the shoulder. "He had _eighteen_ McFlurries, Ben. That'll be fun to play with." He rolled his eyes at the innuendo dripping from her observation. "You sure this bet is gonna last?"

He pushed the rest of his stir fry in her direction. "Silence yourself, woman. Go back to daydreaming about Sadusky." Abigail declined to answer and instead lifted a piece of shrimp to her lips with a blush on her cheeks. "That's what I thought." Despite his flippancy, Ben was concerned for Riley. He was a frightfully emotional kid – he felt things in all extremes. It was a little dangerous at times, being around him.

In all honesty, he expected him to disregard the offered bet and spend the afternoon distracting him into bed. Most certainly, he hadn't foreseen an insane McFlurry binge. What was the likelihood of him dying from an ice cream overload like that? A few muffled thuds followed by silence made him glance toward the ceiling with reservation.

"Do you want to go check on him?" Abi teased with a knowing smirk. It took him a full three seconds to process what she said before taking off, nearly knocking over his chair in his haste. "I'll see myself out," she called after him.

"Tell Sadusky I said hi," he replied off-handedly as he thundered up the stairs.

"Will do," she quipped with a jaunty little salute. Unsurprisingly, she wasted no time in vacating the Gates-Poole residence. Most confrontations between the boys ended in noisy, crazy sex – according to Riley, at least. While she respected and loved their relationship for what it was, she didn't want to stick around for that particular show. Carefully an quietly, Abigail locked the door behind her, cellphone already in hand as she started to dial the number of a certain FBI agent.

Ben found Riley lying, sprawled out, on his back with his legs in the air. Nine empty McDonald's McFlurry cups were strewn about his prone body, like funerary offerings. In his hand, he held a tenth, half-eaten ice cream dessert. "Ben?" He sounded sleepily perplexed and his feet fell to the floor with an impressive thunk. There was a smudge of chocolate on his cheek and his glasses were askew on his face.

"Hey kid," Ben crouched down by his head. Riley craned his neck around to meet his scrutiny with bemusement. "How ya feeling?" He asked as he brushed his bangs back.

"I had a dream like this," he purred, leaning into the touch. Suddenly, he jerked back and rolled to his feet. "You're testing me, aren't you?" Ben stayed where he was, trying to look as harmless as possible. It was similar to the way he treated a wounded animal. "It's not fair," Riley whined, sucking on his spoon with a pout.

"You're right," he admitted evenly, "these past few days haven't been fair to you, have they?" Riley shrunk into himself as Ben rose to stand and approached him. For every step that Ben took forward, Riley took two steps back until he stumbled himself into the wall. Casually, Ben plucked the paper cup from his shaking hand. "May I?" He asked as he gently pulled the spoon from his mouth.

"Wait..." Riley protested weakly as Ben tasted the treat. "That's mine..." Ben raised his eyebrows and held out the spoon, still laden with half-melting ice cream. Hesitantly, Riley took a tentative lick, and that was all it took.

The spoon and cup of ice cream fell to the floor as Ben took a hold of Riley's head with both hands and slammed their mouths together. The was teeth and tongue and he was pretty damn sure he almost bit through his lip. Immediately, Riley responded by tangling his arms around Ben's shoulders, bringing their chests in flush contact. Ben groaned in appreciation and trailed a hand down Riley's body to the front of his jeans. He had the belt unbuckled when Riley stopped him.

"Wait," His protest turned into a muffled cuss as Ben sucked on his neck, adding more hickeys to the steadily growing collection. "Ngh, Ben, wait, please," Shakily, he slipped a hand between their bodies to still any further progress.

"Riley," Ben addressed him with a quick kiss on the lips, "what's wrong?"

"You, um..." Riley blushed and hid his face in Ben's chest. "You haven't really touch... touched me? In, um, in a while, so I kind of... wanted to take this, this slow?" With a gentle smile, Ben tipped Riley's chin up with one crooked finger. His blue eyes were wide with shy embarrassment and Ben found he quite liked that look on him. It was almost virginal.

Ben dipped his head, bringing their mouths together in delicate, barely-there kiss. Riley shivered at the touch and parted his lips at the unspoken request. He hummed a sweetly obscene sigh in the back of his throat as Ben deepened the kiss and pushed him farther into the wall. The ice cream was melting all over the floor and there were eight other desserts to be had but Ben was much more interested in the dessert he held captive in his arms. Especially when he made those helpless little moans.

Riley slid his hands up under Ben's untucked t-shirt, tracing the curve of his spine with curious fingers. They parted for a moment, trying to calm their breathing. "I love you," Riley blurted and instantly his face pinkened. They had exchanged vows and admissions of love many, many times but, here, in this lust-hazed room, his voice felt loud, intrusive.

Ben smiled, dilated eyes aglow, "I love you too." Then he kissed him and did something with his tongue that had Riley clutching at his back. His short fingernails left crescent moon indentions and Ben almost relished in the pain – in the realness of the whole thing. "I know you said you wanted to take this slow," he whispered against Riley's mouth, "but I want you, kid."

"I want you too," Riley murmured back and Ben smiled before kissing him again. He made short work of Riley's pants, pushing both his jeans and his boxers down his thighs. The sound he made – shatteringly innocent and _wanting_ – when Ben first touched him went straight to Ben's heart. These were the moments he lived for – when he had Riley Poole, the real living Riley Poole behind all the wisecracks and sarcasm, everything else became secondary.

He held him pinned to the wall and worked him to a slow climax, relishing in the keening whines and broken pleas. This was the difference, Ben realized as Riley bucked and sobbed against him, between fucking and making love. The difference was in Riley's spasming fingers digging into his hips and the babbled promises of eternity and foreverness and all the pretty things that Ben logically knew they couldn't have. He had never been one for destiny but, as he watched Riley stiffen with his release, Ben Gates hoped he had found his with the quietly panting Riley Poole in his arms.


End file.
